Set Fire to the Third Bar
by Delle Tuh
Summary: I'm miles from where you are. I lay down on the cold ground and I, I pray that something picks me up and puts me down in your warm arms...A Neville and Draco story.


**Disclaimer: **I do not own_ Harry Potter._

**Author's Note: **I've been gettning a lot of ideas lately, writing them is hard. This one...is different. But I like it. Neville and Draco are a favorite of mine, I must divulge. And I rather like this. The song is by Snow Patrol. Amazing song. Hope I did it a little justice. Please join the review revolution and review. --Delta

**Set The Fire to the Third Bar**

Neville watches.

He watches the Daily Prophet, he even watches the television.

Why he watches, he doesn't know.

But he knows who he's watching for.

His eyes wander when he walks down streets, he scans the large auditorium he sits in when he's learning from the professors.

Not that he would ever have come to a class that had anything to pertain to Herbology.

It was just compulsive, the thought of walking right passed him and not seeing him, being in the same room and not seeing him…

That is why he watches, searches.

Searches for him in every bar in town when night allows him.

Classes are a bugger these days, almost back to back, and that paired with such lack of sleep makes bruises under Neville's eyes that almost hurt.

He pulls back every draft and when his sight finally blurs and the room begins to spin ever so rhythmically, Neville decides to take leave. Hoping he'd drank enough to fall asleep and not dream.

Not dream of him, not dream of anything.

Neville wants peace from the face that haunts him every time his eyes close.

Maybe that's why he searches for him everywhere he goes, just so that he can see him. Just so he'll know what they had themselves wasn't just a dream.

Neville is sick of thinking, and drinking, himself crazy.

But, just as he knew would happen, when he closes his eyes in bed that night, it's his face he sees.

Pearly grey eyes, like stones in the sea.

Hair like strands of pale yellow sun rays, curled across his beautiful cheeks bones.

Skin like alabaster stretched and formed over smooth glass bones.

He looked so breakable back then.

So fragile.

He remembers gathering what was left of the boy in his arms and drying him off, he had no idea why he'd been in the bathroom, sitting with the faucets running down and dripping onto the concrete floor.

Like a symphony of tears surrounding him.

Those eyes looked up at him with an emptiness Neville will never forget, and when Draco lifts himself and presses his pale lips to his own, Neville wakes.

He wakes to the rain playing outside, and to emptiness beside him.

His fingers run across the sheets, like maybe he was there.

Maybe he'll be there.

It's not until his ninth year teaching at Hogwarts that he finds what he is searching for.

First years are always difficult, they're afraid and they don't like touching plants that move.

He tries to explain to them that every plant moves and breathes, some just more than others.

Yet there is one, one boy that doesn't hesitate to tackle the tentacula and snip the leaves off, as though it were just that easy.

It is not until Neville looks into the boy's eyes that he knows.

"What's your name, son?"

The boy smiles and his chest swells with pride.

"Scorpius, Professor Longbottom, Scorpius Malfoy."

Even his voice is just a timbre beneath his fathers.

"Fifty points to Slytherin, then."

He pats the boy on the shoulder and dismisses class.

Tears threaten to take him down, incapacitate him.

He had found what he had been searching for, at least, part of it.

He hadn't known of the child and therefore couldn't know that one day he would come gallivanting into his classroom to bring the past crashing down upon him.

And Neville is tired.

So he does nothing but wait for his next class, and grade papers.

He refuses to divulge in the daydreams that keep pricking his eyes, keep flashing through his mind.

All soft moans and glistening skin.

All Draco.

But Neville continues with his day, not daring to think of what he knew was walking through the castle walls at this very moment.

And when he sleeps that night, he dreams of darkness.

It is the only solace he could ask for.

--


End file.
